Three former Brewster students are having a ball…a Thruball, to be precise. No, that’s not a new cocktail. It’s the game Calder Billings, Jackson Callahan, and John Wadlinger—Brewster chums from the Class of 2011—put their heads together to invent, make, and market. And they’re enjoying the heck out of it.
“As far as work goes, this is the most fun I’ve ever had,” says Callahan. “Working with your best friends, and it’s a game too, so you can have fun while working on it… That just makes it even better.”
Thruball is an all-ages lawn game in which players use paddles to swat a ball back and forth through a rectangular opening in an upright frame. The creators wanted it to be like other popular games, but also distinctly different. “The easiest way to explain it,” says Wadlinger, “is that it’s similar to volleyball” in that each side can hit the ball three times on a return. “But with paddles and balls like Pickleball, and instead of going over something, like a net, you’re going through it.”
The guys initially envisioned a circular “through” opening but ran into manufacturing issues with that shape, especially one in 3D that could be easily snapped together or popped apart. “We realized how expensive and difficult it would be to make it affordable, stable, and also collapsible” for breakdown and re-assembly, says Callahan. Ultimately, they settled on a rigid plastic frame with a horizontal “window.” An entire Thruball set—paddles, balls, frame and boundary markers—fits handily into a zippered carrying bag.
Countless hours of testing, playing, and perfecting have made them close to Thruball pros. And they continue to play, play, play, regularly hitting the beaches of Boston (where they all live within just a few blocks of each other) with their Thruball bag, their girlfriends, and their buddies. They often see others playing volleyball on the beach, and “we’ll set up right next to them,” says Billings, thinking about a challenge that would be an irresistible lure for new players. “We should put up a sign that says, ‘Beat us and we’ll give you $500’.”
“When we get out and play, that’s the best promo,” adds Wadlinger, noting people are curious about the game when they watch it, and often sold when they see how much fun it is. And it’s open to everyone, from casual duffers to die-hard competitors. “It’s as competitive as you want to get with it,” he says. “You can play it with a beer in your hand just standing there.” Adds Billings, “We tend to be more on the competitive side,” jumping, diving for shots, and spiking.
They’re all involved now in another kind of competition: Marketing the game on social media, making it stand out among other recreational pursuits and convincing more people to try it—and buy it. The 30-year-olds still have individual careers, with hopes of eventually going all-in for Thruball. Billings is a real estate broker; Callahan is a producer for an ad agency; Wadlinger’s a software consultant. “Starting a business is something we had always talked about,” says Callahan. “And we’d love to be full time one day,” adds Billings.
After Brewster, they all went their separate ways to college. Billings was a lacrosse star at the University of Vermont while getting his business degree, Callahan studied electronic media communications and marketing at High Point University in North Carolina, and Wadlinger went to St. Michael’s in Vermont, where he also played lacrosse and majored in business. After college, they fortuitously found themselves together again in Boston, where they became roommates anxious to apply their upper-ed smarts to an original idea.
They loved getting together to play Spikeball, which revolves around serving and returning a ball bounced on a small round trampoline. It was featured on the TV show Shark Tank, became wildly popular with kids and young adults, and is now a multimillion-dollar company. One day, after an intense Spikeball session, the Thruball Three hit upon an idea for their own game. “We got back to the house and just sat there for hours talking,” recalls Billings. “We thought, ‘If Spikeball can make such a simple product go viral and do so well, why can’t we?’”
Brewster Beginnings
Back in their Brewster Academy days, seeds for Thruball were planted by other team sports, particularly lacrosse. Billings was the captain of Brewster’s soccer team. He and Callahan also served as captains of the lacrosse team. Callahan and Wadlinger (a fellow LAX player), served as managers for Girls’ Varsity Soccer.
When they weren’t on the field or in class, they were hanging out together on the big deck outside Bearce Dorm, or in Estabrook. Wadlinger and Callahan were both day students, living off-campus at their homes in Wolfeboro, while Billings, from Woodstock, Vermont, was a full-time boarder. “The first couple of years, the day students thought boarding students were cool,” recalls Callahan. “They had freedom and got to live like college students.” But he noted how that perception shifted later, when the “boarding students were envious of us, because we got to leave campus and get away from school and go do stuff.”
They all have fond memories of the relationships forged at Brewster. “More than education, it was the friendships,” says Billings. “So much time together, at that young age, there’s a sense of family and belonging,” adds Callahan. “Our friend group never, never fell apart.” Even today, they’re still connected to other Brewster alums in the Boston area. “So many of my closest friends today are still my friends from Brewster,” says Wadlinger.
All three of their girlfriends enthusiastically support their Thruball project, but Billings admits: “They probably get a little tired of how much we talk about Brewster.”
They recall teachers and faculty who made lasting impressions and modeled exemplary behavior. Bill Lee, their lacrosse coach, is lauded by both Wadlinger and Billings, who admires how he “always made sure we were staying in line and were smart about everything.” Billings adds that T.J. Palmer’s class got him hooked on history. Callahan notes his favorite course, B.G. Hodges’ computer graphics, set the stage for his later skills in video production and advertising.
They laugh about the great fun of Winter Carnival, especially the year their senior class decorated themselves like the Blue Man Group. Then there was the intramural two-hand touch football league, and the stealthy “spy game” called 007 with squirt guns “where you’d get a new target every week,” says Wadlinger. Callahan remembers revving up fans at hockey games with his oversized cardboard “Easy” button for players to skate over and “press” through the plexiglass every time Brewster scored. Billings recalls bathroom break singalongs, when “about 50 guys would leave class, go in the bathroom and have a dance breakdown,” he says. “It sounds weird, but it became a big thing.”
Thru-perbowl Dreams
They’re hoping Thruball also becomes a big thing as they work to grow the game and spread the word. They’ve even thought about who their celebrity spokesperson might be, when they get to that point. “We’re all from New England and Patriots fans,” says Wadlinger. “So Tom Brady is like a god to us.” Billings agrees, pointing out that Thruball is perfect for the former superstar QB, who stepped down from the NFL not too long ago. “It’s a good game for someone who just retired,” he says. “He can go just outside his house in Miami to the beach and play.” They also bring up Mark Cuban, one of the business-investor “sharks” on Shark Tank. “He’s trustworthy, and people know if he supports a product, it has potential,” adds Callahan.
The Thruball Three are clearly thinking big about their potential, even dreaming about their game becoming a major event, worthy of coverage on network television. “When we started it, we were trying to create a business,” says Wadlinger. “I think we accidentally created a sport.”
And when their sport becomes so big, so viral, and so popular, spreading far beyond the beaches of Boston with superstar players and diehard fans and teams in televised championship games, like baseball’s World Series or hockey’s Stanley Cup…well, Wadlinger’s even been thinking about a name for that.
“The Thru-perbowl!” he says.
Neil Pond is an award-winning Nashville-based entertainment journalist and movie critic who covers film, celebrities, music, pop culture, and now, Thruball! Find his reviews as “The Media Tourist” at neilsentertainmentpicks.com. When he’s not cranking it out on a keyboard, he plays drums in a Blondie tribute band.
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